Is it possible to read dominics responses and not conclude that he's either a lying idiot or a delusional crackpot?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Some people are just not that bright, or not that educated. I have absolutely no problem with that. What I do take issue with, is when that sort come into the wrong arena with their ignorance, and claim it is valid.

You've lost, to a certain extent, as soon as they arrive.

They are too ignorant to make a proper argument, and they are also too ignorant to understand how they are wrong. No matter how many times, or in how many ways, you try to get it accross to him, he just can't grasp it, and goes on in his delusion.

I bet someone like Domninic could be in a debate room with two hundred unbiased observers, get his ass completely handed to him, then have all two hundred observers tell him as much, and he'd still walk out convinced of his arguments and conclusions.

If she was clinically dead for a week and came back and told this 'story', maybe then we could talk.

Until such time she and others like her are either lying or mentally traumatized from being on the edge of death.

Either way, personal testimony or NDE experience is not proof.

Let's just deal with 'lying' for a minute.

If NDErs are lying then so to must be the astronauts undergoing extreme training who report similar(?) experiences.

Demophon's primary point is that "Either way, personal testimony or NDE experience is not proof."

Instead of acknowledging and responding to that, Dominic instead responds with a red herring about lying. He even seems to have the hubris to even say exactly what he's going to do,"Let's just deal with 'lying' for a minute." As if the primary point that hearsay is irrelevant can be ignored at all, when that in itself IS the primary problem with ALL of Dominic's assertions so far.

The rest of the thread follows suite; picking and choosing specific 'light' posts to respond too, completely ignoring any substantive responses, and usually offering obfuscating red herrings when he does bother to respond. He knows enough about the subject to be selective about who/what to respond too or say, which implies more then just base stupidity as the reason he acts this way. The only real question now is what and why?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Are a meaningless qualification you've concluded before you began, attributing properties based on little more then conjecture and hearsay. You've done the complete opposite of science by already assigning definition/identity to an observation outside of any evidence, which one could say is the ultimate sin of bad science.

Do you have any explanation for yourself?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Has he ever had his entire life reviewed so that he re-experienced every event instantaneously but yet so clearly that he noticed many things surrounding each life event that he had missed at the time, including feeling what others around him had felt at the time ???

That is what many NDErs report. The 'life review' is one of the most commonly reported aspects of NDEs.

Do you know what euphoria or ego-death is? Do you know anything?

Seriously, have you ever tried MDMA or LSD or any variety of hallucenogenic mushrooms?

The brain can do some powerful stuff within itself. What happens during an NDE is not only not unique, it's also not even that 'special' or hard to replicate.

Do you have a theory as to why NDErs so regularly and consistently have that particular visualisation (looking down on the scene of their body) ? Why that particular visualisation at that time?

Do you have a theory as to why people so regularly and consistently sneeze when surrounded by dust? Why that particular reaction at that time?

Your analogy implies that the experience/sensation of looking down on one's own body is the obvious and expected reaction to a major trauma.

You've already concluded that people actually are outside of their body outside of any reasonable expectation of evidence.

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Has he ever had his entire life reviewed so that he re-experienced every event instantaneously but yet so clearly that he noticed many things surrounding each life event that he had missed at the time, including feeling what others around him had felt at the time ???

That is what many NDErs report. The 'life review' is one of the most commonly reported aspects of NDEs.

Do you know what euphoria or ego-death is? Do you know anything?

Seriously, have you ever tried MDMA or LSD or any variety of hallucenogenic mushrooms?

The brain can do some powerful stuff within itself. What happens during an NDE is not only not unique, it's also not even that 'special' or hard to replicate.

Tell us about one of your drug induced 'life reviews' or equivalent.

You didn't answer the questions.

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Do you have a theory as to why NDErs so regularly and consistently have that particular visualisation (looking down on the scene of their body) ? Why that particular visualisation at that time?

Do you have a theory as to why people so regularly and consistently sneeze when surrounded by dust? Why that particular reaction at that time?

Your analogy implies that the experience/sensation of looking down on one's own body is the obvious and expected reaction to a major trauma.

You've already concluded that people actually are outside of their body outside of any reasonable expectation of evidence.

Thank you for a polite post.

No thanks, your every post is a disrespectful charade of dishonesty and bullshit. You certainly have no respect for us and deserve none in kind.

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No I have only concluded there that that is what they experienced. What actually occurred (objectively) is a separate issue.

You haven't made a post yet that doesn't first assume it is all true, even your pleading and red herrings consists of nothing but assumptions that NDEs are actually as you describe. Even your idiotic subject title of this thread assumes that it is not only true, but EXACTLY how you describe it to be.

If you didn't want to be taken as implying its all true without the objective basis for confirmation, then why do you treat it as such?

« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 09:41:04 AM by Omen »

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Why don't you seem to comprehend your own lack of meaningful scientific input?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

So you are suggesting that NDEs are simply temporary schizophrenic episodes ?

Has he ever had his entire life reviewed so that he re-experienced every event instantaneously but yet so clearly that he noticed many things surrounding each life event that he had missed at the time, including feeling what others around him had felt at the time ???

That is what many NDErs report. The 'life review' is one of the most commonly reported aspects of NDEs.

It's possible that some schizophrenics have experienced this, but I have never heard it reported.

That is actually no evidence that anything about NDEs is in any way supernatural.

What we perceive as reality is actually a highly filtered version of all the sensory input coming from the rest of the nervous system of our body. What we see, smell, taste and feel is not the reality. When we experience the world around us, we actually experience a version of the world that has already undergone rather heavy filtering by our brain. It is impossible for the brain to process all the information coming in and maintain "us" (as in "what is generally perceived as a normal human personality"). Most of the information coming in is not brought to "our" attention. We don't even have access to it in our normal state of mind. But that does not mean that it goes unused or isn't stored.

In an altered state of mind (and when you have an NDE that definitely qualifies as extremely altered state of mind) a lot (if not all) of the filters that are usually in place are turned off.

I agree with all of this (and I dealt with the term 'supernatural' in a previous post).

Regarding the filters, do they provide a more real/true/correct experience when on or off and are there ways of testing this ?

The filters tell me that I seem to be inside a body looking out. Is that accurate ? Does my experience truly have a fixed physical location in relation to the body ?

These questions have not been definitively answered. All we have is an idea of 'normal' or 'what usually occurs' neither of which is an arbiter of objective truth.

Is it possible for someone to investigate NDEs and still remain an atheist ?

You can't make this statement without a prior conclusion that NDE's are anything, based off absolutely no objective evidence whatsoever. Which was emphasized in more or less words by over a dozen before you even bothered to return to post.

Which you're not even concerned with the material your responding too, you begin listing assertions from what you have assumed NDE's to be universally, based off prior conclusions of truth, and without any basis in objective evidence whatsoever.

Positiveaob even challenges you, after listing the variety of other explanations it could be, by trying to get you to provide what exactly is supposed to be convincing about this 'evidence' you submitted. Again, you show nothing but a complete lack of concern and contempt that you're even asked. You seem to think that simply ignoring it by omission or responding with a complete change of subject ( red herring )warrants some kind of meaningful dialogue. Why is that?

You again, exactly as I predicted ( Ignore substantial explanatory posts ), respond flippantly to a person making an obvious observation and correlation. You're not even concerned with responding to what is stated, other then categorically dismissing it as some kind of 'atheist conspiracy'. That even if we gave you the benefit of the doubt, doesn't have any correlation between the scientific explanation of brain chemistry and being an atheist. The inclusion of the 'atheist conspiracy' bit is completely out of left field, evidence of a consistent psychotic bias you project and the kind of idiotic behavior you've repeated in the past. When we can predict your actions dominic, then you're really not doing yourself any favors.

A few more flippant posts occur, no attempt at any kind of real responses or acknowledgment of your own faults. Certainly no attempt to respond to anything substantial, your behavior is observable dominic.

You respond again with a red herring, completely ignoring the primary point and even going so far as to elaborate that your only going to concentrate on one small side issue that wasn't even relevant to the primary point.

You reduce the entire post to a single paragraph and completely ignore the point being made, you then make a conclusion of your own without explanation. It doesn't even occur to you to respond to the point being made or that you yourself need to explain your own assertions, baseless as they are.

Then its right back to the assumption that NDEs are exactly what you attribute them to be, a conclusion you've made prior to any objective information to support it.

After irresponsibly dismissing a explanatory video, someone calls you out on it and forces you to explain further. You of course, don't really explain yourself, and instead make more pleading rationalizations that would require you to have made an assumption that NDEs are anything at all prior and in absent of any objective scientific evidence.

You then mindlessly began posting more meaningless conjecture and hearsay, outside the scope of any scientific analysis or evidence:

Dominic, there is not a single post in this thread where you seriously respond to anyone. There is not a single post in this thread where you actively deal with the problems and criticisms of your own claims. The only thing you ever provide is obfuscation or outright denial.

Why is this?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

You haven't made a post yet that doesn't first assume it is all true, even your pleading and red herrings consists of nothing but assumptions that NDEs are actually as you describe. Even your idiotic subject title of this thread assumes that it is not only true, but EXACTLY how you describe it to be.

If you didn't want to be taken as implying its all true without the objective basis for confirmation, then why do you treat it as such?

Both of us are expressing our beliefs. Neither of us has objective certainty.

For me, however the evidence from NDEs is that something remarkable occurs which is outside of our common everyday experience. The word supernatural is not required because we still have 99% of 'natural' to try and understand.

For example a life review which occurs in detail and in a split second. No need to call it supernatural, but just another part of 'natural' that we don't yet comprehend - fine with me.

We'll allow for a proportion of NDErs who are liars and or want attention or to sell books. But the astronauts are strong evidence that the phenomenon really occurs.

Now apart from the life review, telepathic communication is regularly reported as is instantaneous answers to questions including questions concerning the very nature of reality itself. Again, no need to say 'supernatural'. Just a part of 'natural' that most people know little or nothing about.

Trying to reduce the ability to know anything to a point where we can't know anything, makes all claims pointless.

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Neither of us has objective certainty.

I have objective certainty based on the universally accepted norm for the contextual definition of what it means to be 'objective'. The only way to reach any other conclusion is to redefine what 'objective' means outside the context it is presented and used in any scientific methodology.

Effectively, we don't have to give a shit about what you redefine objectivity to be, it becomes inseparable from make believe at that point and has no correlation to how science works or how science uses objectivity.

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For me, however the evidence from NDEs is that something remarkable occurs

What evidence?

The evidence is that something remarkable occurs.. ? And? Where did the evidence go?

Is it under this rock? Or.. is it something you've concluded beforehand outside of any rational, logical, scientific, and objective basis that is completely inseparable from make believe?

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which is outside of our common everyday experience.

Pleading, since you've already concluded it to exists before you have evidence for it to exist, you can't then define what is common or not common. Your claim possesses no logical foundation or correlation that would even allow your argument to follow.

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The word supernatural is not required because we still have 99% of 'natural' to try and understand.

This is nothing more then blank ignorance; natural and supernatural are not two separate states of things that exists, they are instead descriptions of what exists to observed and what doesn't. If it exists and is not currently observed, but can be observed eventually doesn't make that thing 'supernatural'. Supernatural is interchangeable with non-existent.

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For example a life review which occurs in detail...

A conclusion made prior to actually determining what is true, based off no objective criteria of scientific evidence whatsoever.

It is also largely based on nothing more then conjecture, hearsay, and over-generalizations. There is not even a reasonable sampling size of data to refer too, much less make grand sweeping conclusions based off what is the equivalent of bad data.

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No need to call it supernatural, but just another part of 'natural' that we don't yet comprehend - fine with me.

Your concentration on the term 'supernatural' is some idiotic delusional fantasy, it has nothing to do with the subject.

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We'll allow for a proportion of NDErs who are liars

Even if you did, you neither have the correlating basis for which to conclude what an NDE is or that it even occurs as described. The introduction that people may be lying is not really relevant to arguing against NDE's, since there is nothing compelling useful for even describing NDEs as a shared objective experience.

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..and or want attention or to sell books. But the astronauts are strong evidence that the phenomenon really occurs.

Non-sequitir, you can't make the conclusion that 'astronauts are strong evidence that the phenomenon really occurs..' without first making a prior assumption that the experience is the same or that it is anything at all outside of basic human norms.

This is not scientific, this is not objective, this is woo.

Why don't you seem to understand this?

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Now apart from the life review,

Which again, has no basis in objective information or even reasonable expectation of a sampling size for which to refer too.

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telepathic communication is regularly....

You've simply moved on to more woo that has no more reliable basis in experimentation, repetition, and objective scientific inquiry then NDEs.

What in your post is supposed to be convincing?

What in your post is supposed to be scientific?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Can a person take 12 scientists and their equipment with him into the experience of his own consciousness ? Not that we know of.

So can we discount all such unverifiable experiences as untrue ? Of course we cannot. Appeal to scientific test as the one and only arbiter of truth and dismissal of all else as 'woo' is simply being as dogmatic as any theist.

[hypothetical]If the experience of non physical consciousness turns out to be the primary nature of existence and if physical experience turns out to be (just) one manifestation of that primary consciousness then it is quite likely that science will never be able to verify it. Because science exists only in the physical realm. You cannot then appeal to science against that possibility because science cannot help in that scenario.

Skeptics rule out this possibility on principle and then claim that lack of the possibility of scientific testing is their rationale. This assumes physical experience to be true reality thus begging the question (assuming what it purports to be demonstrating).

Can a person take 12 scientists and their equipment with him into the experience of his own consciousness ? Not that we know of.

The reliability and limits of testing are only limited to what we know, we don't actually know 'consciousness' to be anything that isn't testable.

So again, you're wrong and are pleading to make excuses so you don't have to accept the possibility that consciosness is nothing more then a physical response. See, its not that consciousness exists within or without, we instead need evidence.

All evidence so far shows a direct correlation between physical changes and the state of what we call consciousness. No evidence shows otherwise, it is reasonable to make a conclusion based on available evidence and absence of evidence can be sufficient qualification along with evidence. Which again, science being the wonderful analytical and logical tool that it is, is always open to new evidence/information.

But.. until you provide some, you don't possess any reasonable expectation of logic and objective criteria of evidence for your assertions. Your assertions are little more then wishful thinking, hiding behind outright dishonesty and blustering obfuscation.

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So can we discount all such unverifiable experiences as untrue ?

Red herring, no one argued this. Instead of responsibly taking what I say and responding to what I say, you instead make up this strawman to harp on instead. It allows you to obfuscate the discussion into a different direction where you again make ludicrous unsupported assertions and poorly worded arguments. So instead of addressing the complete lack of any substantial scientific and reasonable coherent logical information for your claim, beyond conjecture and hearsay anyway.. we are here.

All such unverifiable, unnecessary, unpredictable, and untestable things have no relevant meaning to what we can conclude.

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Appeal to scienctific test as the one

No, a basic appeal to the only method of knowing anything reliably. If you have another means of logical analysis of a subject, please make an argument for it.

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and only arbiter of truth and dismissal of all else as 'woo' is simply being as dogmatic as any theist.

Wrong again, since you're still harping on the larger strawman you've constructed that no one actually argued for, I have to point out that science is not he arbiter of truth. In fact, science being the absolute arbiter of truth would actually contradict the methodology of science in being able to determine anything. We cannot prove or determine absolute truth in science, for anything.

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If the experience of non physical consciousness turns out to be the primary nature of existence and if physical experience turns out to be (just) one manifestation of that primary consciousness then it is quite likely that science will never be able to verify it.

Meaningless.

It also creates a condition where we could discover every conceivable tie from physicality and consciousness and still have that be true.

We can make the exact same idiotic appeal to any subject we deem to make it up for:

If the experience of the movement of the moon around the earth is due to a completely non physical cause of invisible pink leprechauns riding unicorns then it is quite likely that science will never be able to verify it.

See, it only requires us to make up a conclusion we have no evidence for and conclude it as true, then to be as stupid as you are and present it as a reasonable argument for anything. We can even presuppose this situation into everything we already know about gravity, physics, and astrophysics - because it can be claimed for anything/everything.

Now, why do you think this relevant at all?

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Because science exists only in the physical realm....

Your definition of 'physical' is lacking and incoherent. It is essentially being used as interchangeable with anything that exists and exists to be observed, ie natural. If something doesn't exist or doesn't exist to be observed, then it has no effect on natural existence. You can't then try to tie in things that do not exist to be observed in a state where it could make observable changes on existence.

I know you're trying to make some kind of idiotic argument against philosophical naturalism vs methodological naturalism, but again they are not one and the same. You've done nothing but pigeon holed yourself again based off your own ignorance and tendency to dishonestly rationalize your own contradictions away.

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You cannot then appeal to science against that possibility because science cannot help in that scenario.

The only thing agree with, however you can't appeal to anything to show that it does exist. It is just as meaningless as the invisible pink unicorn riding leprechauns that make the moon go round the earth.

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Skeptics rule out this possibility on principle ..

False, I just pointed out what could exist and be unobserved. You are again responding to an argument no one makes and is part of a larger idiotic strawman.

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and then claim that lack of the possibility of scientific testing is their rationale.

The lack of it being observed. Testing requires something to test.

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This assumes physical experience to be true reality thus begging the question (assuming what it purports to be demonstrating).

Which is a pleading qualification, ( physical experience ), please demonstrate that something else exists if you're going to make this argument as bad as it is.

« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 11:23:17 AM by Omen »

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Why did you construct a position that no one argued for to respond too?

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

So, after dismissing about half a dozen peoples posts as 'bad science', you then swing your full attention to making an anti-science obfuscating strawman?

What happened to the credibility of the individuals you dismissed and their information, as 'bad science'? Why do you even care, since ultimately you want to reduce 'knowing' to a level that is logically inseparable from make believe?

Prediction: Dominic will not return for several days and will not respond to the issues brought up in the past few posts, dominic will instead address the one or two posts following our exchange as if nothing happened.

« Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 08:01:32 AM by Omen »

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"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Well said.... yes that is what I was referring to with so far, pretty dogmatic responses.

You cannot be serious, GG! Throughout the thread Dominic tries to sell physical evidence as lending 'hardly deniable' credibility to his religiously motivated afterlife fantasies (e.g. through claiming that the perceptions during OBEs are evidence for the reality of NDEs - the perceptions of the physical surroundings of the [dying] physical body, no less). And now - when cornered - he claims that there is (probably?) no physical reality anyway, making physical evidence - including that presented by himself - superfluous in dealing with the topic at hand. Yet physical evidence - in form of typed down anecdotes and testimonials, read with physical eyes from a physical computer screen - is everything Dominic got and he even "tests" this physical by comparing the anecdotes to one another and looking for consistency. And then he claims the tests holds, turning around saying no test is possible - actually.

Well said? Really? I'd call it ridiculous with a tendency towards sad.

NDEs are a subset of OBEs. All are important but NDEs are more interesting because continuing after bodily death is more significant than experiencing outside the body while the body is still well.

Why? Dom, it is clear that the only reason you are interested in NDEs is that they give you some hope for your myths being true.

And considering that the conversation has slipped into if subjectivity is true, I think we are headed for the usual solipsism that theists retreat to when shown their arguments are nonsense, in the usual attempt to claim that no one knows the real "truth".

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

Just thinking, couldn't OBEs be a product of faulty spacial perception, due to several important senses suddenly being rendered offline, the cause being a traumatic event? Our minds are quite capable of "filling in the gaps".

Still wondering does anyone know of a documented case of mass NDEs, from say unrelated/unaffiliated trauma victims of a disaster? (This thought may lead nowhere, I'm just curious).

Do you have a theory as to why NDErs so regularly and consistently have that particular visualisation (looking down on the scene of their body) ? Why that particular visualisation at that time?

Do you have a theory as to why people so regularly and consistently sneeze when surrounded by dust? Why that particular reaction at that time?

Your analogy implies that the experience/sensation of looking down on one's own body is the obvious and expected reaction to a major trauma.

I did mention that in this very topic already. That people who do suffer from major trauma can get an 'OBE'. There are ALL kinds of things that can cause it. Drugs. Trauma. Direct stimulation of brain tissue. I even coughed up a link. It's not just me saying it.

Dominic, where do you live? Please tell me. I'd really love to meet you in a big open public place and 'debate' with you.

Tealeaf, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not threatening Dominic with physical violence. Even so, I am going to remind you that threats to other members will not be tolerated and are counterproductive to civil discourse.